


The [Edited] Longshot

by TheArtOfBlossoming



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25877116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtOfBlossoming/pseuds/TheArtOfBlossoming
Summary: What happened to MacCready between leaving the Gunners and meeting the Sole Survivor.This is the safe version, with mentions of non-con redacted. It still contains swearing and game-relevant violence.





	The [Edited] Longshot

Roofs, at first in the pre-dawn light, all I can see are roofs. The wind is pretty strong way up here. I make a mental note of its direction and strength for when I get the signal to start firing, after I see the guy in the power armor arrive up here with me. 

I think he's the guy who's paying us. Klimt or Glint or somesuch. I don't care what the fucker's name is, as long as I get paid an' I never promised Duncan I wouldn't swear like a blue-assed trooper in my own head.

There's figures milling about down there like ants. Some are armed, others armed only with beer bottles. Man I could murder a beer right now…and a cigarette. Gotta stay keen, though. Keen means caps. Is this guy really gonna wait until dawn? I can see well enough with the sunglow behind us up here.

The cold of the concrete seeps through my gunner greens. Wish I had a coat. Suddenly, the signal goes off. Nobody'll miss that rocket flare. We come swarming out of the ruins at the edge of the old town. That means Winlock is in position and Barnes' stealth troops have taken out a couple guards already. Look at them all, they thought they were safe, playing hometown down there.

Fuck. All that beer gone to waste. I've lined up and taken three shots before the rocketsmoke clears. Then I see a small figure run out into the confusion. I line up the midget in my scope…shit. It's a child. Stupid kid, get to cover! Then I see him. Grinder, Grunter's uglier twin. Halfway up a roof, raising his gun, aiming at the boy. Is that the parents running toward the kid? I can't let Grinder do it. We shoot almost simultaneously but the fucking wind slows my bullet down just enough to be too late. 

The kid is on the floor. The parents collapse. A guy in a hat fires his laser musket at the Gunners who are closing in on their position. A pair of eyes suddenly look right at me, tracing my shot. I'm already half-standing, backing away from the edge when Ferret spots me, orders me to get back into position. I shake my head, no, fuck this for a game of soldiers. I didn't sign on to kill kids. I'm only here for the caps.

_To save **my** kid…but they don't know that and they never will. Nobody ever will._

Ferret shouts something about deserting. I get back to my sniper's nest. Suddenly Grunter is there with the bitch sisters in tow. I hear orders being barked to the lieutenant to chase down survivors. I glance down, oh fuck their dirty caps anyway. I get one last shot off. The guy in the hat with the laser musket sees the body of the Gunner who would've ambushed him topple off the roof by his feet. He looks up. I swear he sees me…  
Nobody deserts the Gunners, they say. The Minutemen are finished, they gloat. A second later, I heard a laser musket spin up, a wet crack and Grunter's brains are mostly all over the bitch sisters. I lay paralyzed for what seems like ages but is only seconds.

Their attention is suddenly on the fight again.  
One sister goes down. The other is still distracted as I retrieve my rifle but as I do so, I glance over the rail to see Ferret and a couple of his lackeys about to take down the good guy who is keeping the bitch busy. I remember the jet, still thankfully in my pocket and take a hit. Time seems to slow. I get three perfect headshots - fuck you and your siren sisters, you bastard - and swing my rifle around, despatching the last threat. Her panicked defensive shot catches me in the shoulder and I drop. The jet is making me lose more blood as my heart pounds. I bunch my baggy shirtsleeve over the wound and lay on it. As I start to come down from the jet, I feel like lead. May as well play dead until I know it is safe to get the hell out of here. 

_'Join the Gunners_ ', MacCready, they said. _'We pay well, easy caps for a guy with your skills'_ , they said. _Your pockets'll be jingle-janglin' in no time,_ they said. 

They never said how high the price really was.

* * *

The sun is as high as it gets. Not the ideal time to sneak away but most of the remainders are out chasing that last ragtag group or are already high or drunk on the loot. It's quiet out there…but not too quiet.

I stay low, my body aching. I search the remains near me: no stimpaks, tight bastards, just a Med-X, that's better than nothing at least. It lets me walk on what I suspect is a hairline fracture. My left arm is a bit numb but it'll hold the rifle up briefly, if I brace it against my ribs. I'm risking bruises from the kick-back but better that than orphan my child. Oh Dunc, I'll find it, kiddo. I have to.

I get down from the highway, swing, drop, roll, freeze. Nothing. Speaking of freeze, it's cold for late spring. Why can't I stop shivering? I look around and see a body with a tan coat. Well, most of a coat. One arm is laying some way away but it'll do. I quickly strip it, put it on, along with the leather belt and strap, to which I attach my trusty binoculars. Now no-one can see that my shoulder is injured, good. The last thing you want to do is advertise your weaknesses.

I manage to slink away, go cross-country for a while then when I'm clear of Gunner territory, head for a road. Before long, I find what I'm looking for: a trader on their lonesome. We negotiate protection pay. Gunners took out their last bodyguard. I spit. Yeah, f..freakin' Gunners, I say out loud, mentally patting myself on the back for sticking to my word about swearing. I have to be better than them. Have to be. 

I don't outright lie but the caravanner takes me for a Minuteman. I let them keep that assumption. Finally, after very little hassle, we reach a settlement. I spend most of my pay on a couple stimpaks, one for now, one for emergencies. I allow myself one beer, the rest of the caps I stack in a roll, tape and stash in my hidden pocket.

I'm halfway down my beer when an old guy walks in. The barkeep greets him and asks how Susan is doing. The guy replies that she's still covered in those blue boils… I don't hear the rest before I'm leaping off my stool and describing those horrid symptoms and what they smell like when a doc tries to lance them (not a good idea). 

The old fella introduces himself as Sinclair. His partner Susan contracted these things whilst farming out in the Capital Wasteland. I ask where, exactly. Turns out, not far from Homestead. He reckons there was some kinda crop experimentation going on in the area. He'd found a doc who was a descendent of what he called 'bio-engineers', I blanked out most of the science drabble but caught one fact. They weren't contagious. A doc back home had said the same thing. I'd never have risked leaving Duncan at Little Lamplight if it were but it was reassuring to hear again. More like poisoning, though, this Sinclair told me his doc had said. That made sense. Duncan sometimes liked to try and eat dirt, no matter how many times I told him not to. It wasn't that he didn't eat more regularly than I did, either. He was just always hungry. Well, I hope he didn't hate cave fungus.

Sinclair was animated. He'd just got a lead, codes to get into a place called Med-Tek Laboratories where he'd found records of a 'universal cure'.

A cure. I can hardly believe my ears. He needs to hire a fellow gun, place is full of ferals. My heart sinks into my boots but I decide to risk it. I open up, tell him the plain truth about my son, how he was playing in the fields behind our homestead one minute, then crying and running to me the next. I could see the damn blue boils forming as he ploughed into my arms. I was horrified, trying not to touch them but I caught them a few times which made him scream. Must have washed my hands twenty times that day. 

I tell Sinclair how I'd spent a week and most of our savings hiring docs. He said he'd done the same for his Susan but that had been four months or so before Duncan caught…whatever this is.

Sinclair is a decent guy. I can tell. He buys me a bed for the night, a meal and restocks my dwindling ammo. We strike a fifty/fifty salvage split deal and checks my aim on three raiders just outside the settlement, as well as taking the word of the caravanner I came in with.

I make myself sleep that night. Make myself focus on Duncan, let the food and the rest finish what the stimpak started. By morning I've managed an impressive six hours sleep and am ready for anything.

In the morning, Sinclair and a woman wrapped up in bandages are waiting. He introduces her but I already know it's Susan. She tells me she's going, despite his protestations, that it's do or die, so I nod and follow.

We're not ready for the sheer amount of ferals that come pouring out once we unlock the front doors. Susan watches our backs but she's getting weaker with every step. We run into automated defenses and have to pull back. Susan leans against a wall and collapses to the floor. Just like that, she's gone. Not by feral nor turret but by those same hideous blue boils that cover my son. Sinclair is weeping, useless. We can't go on. It's hard enough for three able fighters, let alone one stricken by grief and another by fear of ferals. We retreat. He is good to his word and gives me half the loot, then carries his partner somewhere to bury her. If he even gets that far, I'll never know.

I need to regroup. Need to find someone willing to face Med-Tek…and I need to do it soon. I've got maybe five months at the outside. I decide to go back to the settlement and latch on to the next caravan, see if maybe I can find somewhere bigger to set up, get a few jobs, vet the employers and see if they would be up for the mission. I give myself three and a half months to find someone, allowing time to get the cure back to Duncan. Because I _will_ get that cure, longshot or no and time is running out.

Two days pass. I'm getting restless. My gun is as clean and oiled as it can get, I'm as fed and watered as I can spare the caps for, I've even washed my da..darned clothes and hair. Some big ol' gal called Mindy is due to rock up with her brahmin any hour now. 

I can hear the moo-duet. Here she comes. Right, business face on, Mac.

The trader unloads ordered goods, I don't pester her 'til she's eaten. Then I mosey up and offer my gun. She takes me out back, tosses a can in the air, I shoot, she catches the can that now boasts a perfectly central hole. Usual trick. She offers me a generous fee and warns me we're headed through Supermutant territory. No problem, I say.

Then she tells me that where she's headed would be a good place to set up shop, that the Mayor would probably welcome a good shot like me with open arms. For a moment I wonder if she's talking about Diamond City. Lucy and I went there once. It's where I got my hat. I'm not about to lay it down _there_ , though. That particular mayor would chase a hired gun like me out onto the street.

No hon, she says, not the Great Green Jewel. Nobody's called me 'honey' or 'hon' for years. I'm not that sweet. Where then, I ask. 

Goodneighbor.

We were on the road soon after. Usual threats, ferals, wild mutts, insects. Raiders seemed to leave Mindy well alone. I'm sure there's a story there but I'm not being paid for stories. 

We have one rest stop by a ruined building. I scout it to make sure it's safe and pick up a little scav along the way; some ammo, a practically new toy car that Dunc would love and a mostly unburned book by someone called something Wells.That, I could sell, along with a fair amount of packaged food and a suitcase full of half decent clothing. I lug it down to Mindy and suggest we split the proceeds. She says 'finder's keepers'. I almost like this woman.

The few Supermutants we encounter are downed quickly. No suiciders, thank my lucky stars. We get to Goodneighbor an hour after the summer sun rises. The shops aren't open yet. That there even _are_ shops is a pleasant surprise, the stench of urine as we walk through the gate, not so much.

Mindy tosses me a few more caps to help her unload the brahmin. I grumble quietly, hate manual labor but I need every cap I can get. The goods are piled outside a place called 'Daisy's Discounts'. The name doesn't fill me with confidence for my cut of the profits. Mindy lands her wide load on the nearby bench, tells me we won't have to wait long and offers me a cigarette. I take it as a bonus. Man, I needed this. Lucy used to nag me that my lungs _didn't_ but nothing else took the edge off like a good cigarette. At least I don't smoke around Duncan. 

A few minutes later and now a ghoul appears. Great. All I need is a pre-war know-it-all lecturing me. Mindy introduces me to Daisy.

* * *  
_This isn't your usual sidearm_ says the trader to the caravanner. "'Sidearm', I like that, pruneface," I say sarcastically. Mindy tells me to be nice to her friend else she won't pay me. I shut up. The ghoul doesn't talk to me directly whilst she sorts through the pile of goods and tots up the final figure. It isn't as stingy as I'd feared, maybe my pay will be half decent. When Mindy's business is done, she pays me and moves her brahmin to tie them up near the door. So _that's_ why it stinks. 

I heave the loaded suitcase over to the counter. The ghoul woman is staring right through me, it freaks me out. She pays well for the clothing and canned goods, even takes the old suitcase for a few caps but as I lean forward, the book and the car fall out of my coat.

There's no-one about except a guy in a patched suit with a tommygun. Local peacekeeper, I guess. Daisy picks up the car before I can and offers me top price for it but I refuse. That gets her curious. I try to change the subject and ask if there's a stall to rent or a place I could hang out to offer my services. She tells me, talk to the Mayor and immediately asks if I have a kid. I say I have a son without thinking. Dammit. She looks at the book still on the floor. I pick it up and offer it to her for sale. She looks at it, declares the print to be too tiny to read and offers me a deal. Ten caps to read ten pages a day ( _You can read, can't you?_ cheeky old hag) of what turned out to be a story called 'The Time Machine'. There's a catch. She gets to ask me a question, too, after every session. I shrug and agree. I've no qualms about lying if I have to and I never agreed to answering them anyway, she just wants to ask me stuff. She smiles at me and tells me where to find the Mayor, telling me I'll like him, he's really not that much older than I am despite how he looks (how the fuck does she know I'm just in my twenties?). 

So she tells the Tommygun to show me up to the Mayor. They whisper something I can't quite hear. I get up there, fancy old building. Guy must be pretty loaded looking at all the protection he has standing around, plus the piles of chems I spy on the table past the red coat he's wearing. My fingers itch but my gut tells me not to try anything here. 

A fierce-looking woman makes sure I _know_ not to try anything. The Tommygun whispers to the redcoat. I like his hat, one of those old three-cornered things like I pirate. He turns around…the Mayor is a freakin' ghoul.

He's riding a Mentats high, I can tell. Shoos away all but the scary woman so we can talk in private. He understands I'm looking for a place to set up shop, gives me a whole spiel about how great this place is and actually, personally, gives me a tour. The woman - Farenheit - is like his shadow but as I look around I start to feel hopeful. When we get downstairs to the Third Rail and he tells me I can use the V.I.P. room for a small percentage of whatever I make, plus a bed at the Rexford (the room with a huge hole in the wall but still…) I jump at the chance.

* * *  
So I've been here a couple months. So far I've had one quick job and found out that I'm right on the edge of Gunner territory. They threaten to contest the border with the Mayor so according to them, I'm almost in the middle. They won't start anything though, not unless someone pays them to and that price'd be pretty darn high.

I get drunk one night and spill that I'm an ex-Gunner myself. Stupid, MacCready, stupid. I also impressed the Mayor by telling him I used to be a mayor myself. He didn't believe me until some old Drifter from the Capital Wasteland wandered in, saying how they'd come from a colony of kids. I didn't recognise him, must have been before my time. Who wears shades indoors at night anyhow?

Anyway, now people know I'm ex- Gunner, they don't want to hire me. Shitfuckbastards. I spend half the caps I get from Daisy on beer. Time is running out. I can't go anywhere else. Diamond City won't have me, there's nowhere else big enough in the Commonwealth to set up and I don't have time to go door to door. 

Daisy has managed to win me over, though. At least I have someone I can trust to talk to. She even has connections that go to the Capital Wasteland, so a while back I sent a letter to Dunc and got a reply back. He drew me with my hat and my gun and a big pile of caps. He also drew Lucy in the sky with wings on. Damn. I'm crying again.

* * *  
Three months and a week. This is cutting it too close. Of the few clients desperate enough to approach me, none have been the types to take up arms alongside me to tackle Med-Tek. Then I hear too-familiar voices and in strut Fucking Winlock and Bloody Barnes. They start on me for working Gunner territory. I don't care. Goodneighbor isn't their strut, they don't want to start a war with Hancock's lot. Just as they finish trying to threaten me - which worked, I just didn't let them know they made me shit myself - this Vaultie walks in.

Last thing I need right now is to deal with a pampered, sheltered Vault Dweller. Then again, as I look at the big guy more closely, he doesn't look like he grew up underground. Yeah, he's pale under the sunburn and cleanish but he's a redhead and they're usually pale anyway. He's wearing a combat armor helmet and a mix of armor. Looks like he collected those himself. He's strong, too. Well-fed to get that big but not recently. I can hear is stomach rumble. Not sure I could get my hands around those upper arms. 

He's looking to hire a mercenary for work, what exactly he doesn't say, only mentions I was recommended. By whom, I wonder. I say two hundred and fifty caps, plucking a figure out of the air without fixing a term of service or anything. I'm not thinking straight. He quirks a smile at me from under that impressive mustache and offers two hundred. I agree. Too fast MacCready. Too late. What exactly does this guy want of me? Welp, I'm contracted to follow him now.

* * *  
We wander around the Commonwealth. It turns out, the guy has one heck of a story. He's Brotherhood but only kinda. He's a Minuteman, mostly - I didn't even know you could be both. He knows the guy in the hat from Quincy but I keep my big mouth shut. They don't recognise me. We go round helping people, clearing ground to build settlements. The guy, Vincent, picks up every fu..frickin' desk fan and bit of junk he can, then I get to carry it. Well, I offer, thinking that _maybe_ if he doesn't quite get back everything he stuffs in my pack, he won't notice.

* * *  
Vincent, Vin, could just be the guy I've been waiting for. He has military experience, I can tell. He's a pretty good sniper himself, darn good with that Gauss rifle and has a good grenade arc throw. We make a pretty good team. I'm gonna ask him to take on Winlock and Barnes with me. Get them off my back, prove that Vin's the one to take to Med-Tek. If we make it…time's almost up. 

* * *  
I'm free of the Gunners. Vin's the real deal. I think Duncan has a chance. Then we go save Vin's son. Yeah, I knew he had a goal, something personal. The Institute took his Shaun but as far as Vin knows, Shaun isn't dying so we're getting the cure to Duncan first. 

* * *  
I'm shaking as I hand the syringe to Daisy. It's wrapped in soft cloth, safe in a tough box. Mindy's due any hour. She'll get it there. She has Minuteman protection now, thanks to Vin. I could _kiss_ that man.

Shit! I just realised. I really could…he might not kiss me back, though, it'd be a longshot…


End file.
